


First Year

by RenaRoo



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 21:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4035556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenaRoo/pseuds/RenaRoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian is a first year medical student, so obviously he believes he knows everything. A visit to see his brother on call makes him believe otherwise...</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Year

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ephemeraltea (temporarily_obsessed)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporarily_obsessed/gifts).



> Prompt: ( ephemeraltea ) Prompt: Surgeon Jason and his bratty medical school brother Damian.
> 
> A/N: I have a huge thing for behind-the-scenes hospital dramas XD;

With his feet kicked up on the coffee table, Jason takes a breath and lays back, neck achingly arching over the back of the couch. His eyes close and his fingers instinctively dance over the beeper at his belt.

_Just a few minutes…_

The On-Call Lounge's door swings open but Jason merely takes a breath. If he's quiet enough, whoever it is will feel like shit for daring to wake him up after his seventh hour on call. They'll back away --

_"Tt."_

Jason swears under his breath and opens one eye partially to peak.

He feels his brother take a seat beside him long before his blurry vision distinguishes who it is.

"Can I help you?" Jason hums, sliding his eye closed again. "Don't you have something better to do? Like study?"

"It's _summer,"_ Damian snaps back. "And Father has been in his office since eight this morning."

"Then go home," Jason huffs, wishing desperately for his nap to progress as planned. "I'm not here to babysit you. I could be leaping into action at any minute."

That earns him a glare. "You're still working? You're trying to go to sleep! What kind of doctor are you?"

"One that would rather sleep between surgeries than _during_ one, now amscray," Jason retorts with a wave of his hand. "And stop bothering Dad. It's not any fun being Chief of Medicine sucks. Especially when it's time to make budget cuts."

"Is it time?"

"It's _always_ time," Jason sighs and puts his feet back on the ground. "Damn it, Damian. I'm tired!"

"Then you shouldn't be working," Damian snaps. "In seminar -- "

Jason rolls his eyes and groans. "Oh, in _seminar_. First Year _Seminar,_ I forgot. I forgot you already knew everything about being a doctor," he huffs. "Why aren't you bothering Dick? He's not working today."

"He's sleeping," Damian returns with a sour look. "Besides. He was the one that arrested that big bruiser that made the eleven o'clock yesterday. I know he's earning his keep."

With an exaggerated groan, Jason rubs roughly at his face. Says, "Oh, my god, Damian, if you pester me any more about _shit you just don't get yet,_ I swear -- "

The door swings open again and the brothers look up to see none other than their favorite mentor and family friend.

Leslie blinks at Damian a few times before smiling warmly. "Hello, Damian, I didn't know you were shadowing with us here today." She then glances to Jason and frowns. "I heard you were still here. When do you get off?"

"Seven," Jason sighs. He looks to his watch. "So two more hours. I might get dinner. You just checking in on me?"

"Always," she says with a soft smile. "I might catch dinner with you if I can get done with this check up."

"Hold you to it," Jason returns as Leslie ducks out. He sighs and plops one of his large hands on Damian's spiky head, rubbing it before the boy is even able to comprehend what just happened. "C'mon, kiddo. I might be more hungry than I am tired after all."

Damian smacks Jason's hand away with a growl and tries to smooth his hair again while Jason makes his way to the door.

Jason laughs. His brother makes it to easy.

*

"This food is unbearable," Damian groans, pushing the supposed peas around the tray. "How are you shoveling it in like slop?"

Jason puts the last of his mashed potatoes into his mouth and reaches over for his napkin. He's mostly been ignoring Damian's every complaint.

A less petulant part of Damian might even be willing to admit that is what is spurring his urge to whine _more._

"You better get used to it, princeling," Jason retorts at last, wiping his mouth. "You're not going to have Alfred's packed lunches forever. We can't _all_ be Tim."

Damian frowns at even the thought. How their family managed to have two -- soon to be _three_ \-- prestigious doctors, a decorated police officer, a national guard, and then a _private investigator_ is beyond him.

At one time Timothy had such promise, too…

"Uh-oh," Jason sighs, looking down as he pulls the beeper from his belt. "Well, you wanted to shadow something? Time to shadow."

Perking up immediately, Damian raises to his feet just as Jason does so and begins jogging away from their table, only a few of the nurses and other patrons bothering to look up.

"What is it?" he demands, racing to keep up.

"Car wreck, shrapnel possible, broken femur _definite--"_ Jason manages to get out as he slides past nurses and orderlies that all but duck out of the way. "Get out of the red lane _we have it for a fucking reason_ \-- unbelievable."

Damian feels his heart pounding -- these sorts of things are never covered by first year medical students, not even second or third. Odds are rotations wouldn't give him this firsthand experience either.

They make it to the OR just as the other nurses swarm Jason and begin to help him prep. Damian hovers at the door, feet dangerously close to crossing the sanitation line.

Jason, hands up and gloved, glances over his shoulder to see Damian before nodding toward the door. "You can watch from the window. But skid-addle if family shows up to watch and wait for me in the break room, alight?"

"I've watched before," Damian huffs, turning to do just as directed.

It isn't a lie. He _has_ observed before. But it has never been Jason in surgery -- and surgery is Jason's true calling, if the bloated doctor's ego is anything to be believed.

Almost as soon as Damian reaches the window, though, the EMTs and nurses are loading the patient into the OR where Jason stands with his team. And it's in nods and hand signals that everything gets done at lightning speed.

Damian has undressed and prepped cadavers faster than anyone in his year… but it doesn't have a _tenth_ of the speed or finesse that Jason's working at currently.

The operation begins, Jason nodding to nurses at random, switching instruments faster than Damian can discern them. He cuts flesh and bone and it takes _seconds._

And Jason? Jason looks as though he has yet to break a sweat.

It makes Damian sick. In all of his years putting up with his siblings' random boastings… he never thought for an instant that Jason was nearly as good as he said he was.

Let alone _better._

It's only twenty minutes in, but Damian slips into the break room without a family crowding him out to do so.

*

Twenty minutes left to his shift and Jason is ready to ask his old man for a raise.

He's somewhat surprised when his annoying brother isn't waiting outside the OR to tell him how much better the surgery could have been handled, but he's far more tired than he is anything else.

Jason only makes one attempt to run his latex dried fingers through sweat slicked hair before settling on just shaking his head until it falls somewhat looser.

Thank _god_ he has tomorrow off because he's at least partially sure that he won't be able to stand for the rest of the night and most of the next day.

With a stiff kick of the break room door, Jason finds his younger brother seated in Jason's favorite spot, eliciting a groan from the man.

He's going to have to set some ground rules for future visits this summer.

"Oh, don't get up on my account," Jason says in feigned frustration, making his way to the lumpy recliner and all but collapsing into it. "It's not like I just saved someone's life. Like a boss."

His face is half pressed into the armrest when he starts to slide his eyes shut.

Everything's foggy with sleep depravation which is why it takes a moment before Jason opens his eyes and looks to his brother, realizing the younger man didn't rise to the bait.

Damian is staring at Jason like he's radiating a holy light.

It's weird. Only Tim should have that look for anyone in their family.

"What's your deal?" Jason mumbles into the fabric.

"I can't be a surgeon," Damian says, robotically.

Jason blinks a few times, rolls the statement around a few times in his head before sighing, deciding that yes. This apparently was a situation which a quires full attention. Still too achey to sit up, he shifts so that his head more directly faces Damian.

"Okay, more slowly. Explain why the thing you've been going to school for and snubbing about is suddenly not on your list of things to do," he commands with a wave of his hand which immediately drops to hang over the recliner afterward.

"You're… you're amazing," Damian gets out, wide eyed. "In surgery. Better than you bragged."

Jason laughs, sliding his eyes closed. "Tell me something I don't know. But, seriously, what's this have to do with Mr. Hot Shot you? Aren't you going to beat my every achievement or something?"

Damian looks to his shoes, studies them hard. "No. I can't. I could never be as good as you."

This makes the doctor sigh and he pushes back up into a sitting position, every vertebrae disagreeing with his decision. He looks seriously to the kid. "Hey, dumb ass, _no one_ is as good as me. Thanks for joining my fan club at long last. But guess what? You're kind of insulting me by association."

After a blink or two, Damian looks back at Jason incredulously. "What?"

"Like, kid, how _dare_ you talk shit about one of my stupid brothers or sister," Jason says with a pointed raise of his brows. "You're going to cut _Damian Wayne_ short? Do you know how determined that kid is? If he thought it'd be advantageous for him to disown all of us, he'd do it in a heartbeat. Because he's a kid that knows he's going places, and I know for a fact that if he ever sold himself short for _any_ reason -- especially fucking _stupid_ ones -- he'd be miserable with the decision until his dying days. Or retirement. Whichever one comes first for you in Gotham."

Damian squirms, nose wrinkled. "Is this a… _pep talk?"_

"I call it a reality bitch slap. I think it's ringy," Jason responds before looking at Damian's eyes. "Damian, if there's anyone on this earth who is more determined to be the best damn doctor possible, then I know I don't freaking know him."

The silence lingers for a moment fore Jason huffs out a laugh. "Damian, you've got this. You know that, don't you?"

The kid sucks in a breath before nodding. "Yeah, I guess I can."

"Okay, good," Jason responds before slithering back into a prone position on the recliner. "You can do anything. Except talk. Because I swear to god, Damian, you wake me up again I might stop you from becoming a surgeon. Because I'll kill you.


End file.
